His performance on 1989 album Hats, the follow-up to debut LP A Walk Across The Rooftops, stands as one of the few truly absorbing testimonies on romantic anguish in the decade that honesty forgot. It remains a benchmark to which lesser singers aspire.
By their own admission, Buchanan and his bandmates - Robert Bell and Paul Joseph Moore - had little in the way of musicianship to rely on when painstakingly piecing together their cinematic studio efforts.
Electing to rely on synthesizers, electronic percussion and spare intrusions of rudimentary guitar, their aim was to make music that created a one-on-one bond with the listener, speaking in a believable voice about real moments in life.
The band's struggle to find that voice saw them ditch a near-complete album amid a crisis of confidence and clash of wills. They started again from scratch, this time nailing most tracks within a few weeks.
Hats sets these intimate exchanges in the wee small hours, in a cityscape illuminated by flickering neon and the headlights of passing traffic. It is time to either withdraw to the oblivion of sleep or turn a collar to the drizzling rain and seek out the distractions of nightlife.
Either way, the picture is that of a man grappling with the imminent prospect of loss and/or the remnants of a relationship that once possessed his every fibre.
Here is where Buchanan works his magic, quietly layering image over image until we are right there with him, waiting for him to find the one line in each song that will release his joy or his pain.
When it comes, it is most often an aching cry loaded with both emotional extremes, an extraordinary and heartfelt moment that crosses the blurred line between pleasure and pain.
